EM internet resources in the hospital

Most hospitals… Actually ALL hospitals I’ve worked in have had a pretty restrictive policy on access to any site that isn’t the hospital intranet. There are a lot of very good and very important reasons for that.

A lot of them have had institutional subscriptions to UpToDate which is lovely and all that but it’s not what I’m looking some of the time. Especially if I’m looking for something like this:

or this:

Smartphones are wonderful but the 3G reception in the ED I’m currently in is a bit shit, so looking up stuff can be done but it takes a walk out to the front of resus to do so.

I try and have as much as possible offline on my phone – Michelle Lin’s PV cards are a great resource via dropbox. I have access to a few a textbooks and a lot of nifty apps (we’re still waiting on the king of them all MDcalc to put theirs out – come on Graham!) but it’s still not the same as having access to Chrome, a good connection and my bookmarks.

Has anyone out there had success in persuading their Super Helpful Information Technology departments (always loved that acronym…) to allow access to some of the wonderful FOAM resources out there?

Comments

I download all med videos from Youtube and Vimeo, it’s super easy to do on Linux and from what I’ve read also pretty doable on Windows. Try Googlin’ it!

I store my copies (as well as all my medical notes, PDF:ed articles, medical images etc) in Google Drive from where they can be either streamed or viewed directly -- even on phone. Surely your hospital must allow Google and it’s services and thus this could be what you’re looking for.

Recently I discovered a brilliant open source (free) and easy to use software, Subsonic. It’s a media server which allows you to stream and download your media files (eg videos) not only home on your local network but also from Internet. If the subsonic.org domain isn’t blacklisted this also is a nice solution for you.

Let me know if you have questions, a paranoid IT department and bad 3G should not stop you from being an excellent doctor

HEy Andy. After a bit of lobbying and “knowing the right people” I have managed to get Broome Docs added as an “education resource” on my hospitals intranet.
Of course, it is hidden behind a heap of guff and nonsense -- but it is there, free and available.
I think it is a foot in the door -- now to start getting video footage allowed -- that requires serious political clout,
Casey